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Developer Testing or Regression Testing

I'm not sure if this belongs in Functional Testing, but I did not see a Regression testing Forum and this kind of relates to testing functionality.

A developer is increasing the size of an existing field from 35 to 80 chars. The part of the app to input these values accepts 80 - Good. This field also has a 3 char code.

On other screens in the app, the user will input the code and after submit, the 80 char field will be displayed as read only. Good so far. But this 80 char string is displayed in one long line which pushes everything on the right side of the screen way out to the right. Not so good - it looks sloppy. It should break and wrap to at least look professional - though it is not in any spec.

The question is, is this something that should have been left for regression testing to find(I don't think so), or should this have been something the developer should have tested and found(which I think). If the developer is directly changing the size of a value, shouldn't they test where it is being used, or is that a regression task? I am starting to get tired of revisiting projects because of simple bugs that should have been found with simple testing.

Re: Developer Testing or Regression Testing

It doesn't matter much at what stage it was found, the good thing is that it was found. Of course, the earlier the better it is on the budget and resources. But now that it has been located it's up to the change control people to decide if it needs to be fixed. When a textbox is overfilled with text it can be handled several different ways, none of which is pretty. If you adjust the width or wrap the text the box gets larger and sometimes overlaps other objects on the screen. Usually it is handled by maintaining the textbox size and just letting the extended text hide behind the screen so that to read it you have to highlight it and move it over. Also not really graceful, but it doesn't interfere with the rest of the screen. Good catch and keep up the good work.

Personal Comment

Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm.
~ Winston Churchill ~

Re: Developer Testing or Regression Testing

Thanks for the support. It's kind of tough when you are a department of 1.

I agree it is good that it is found no matter where, though this would not be a show stopper.

I am more interested if the developer should have found this rather than QA testing the requirements &amp; regression testing find it. This same dev let 44 bugs through on the last assignment causing an additional 80 hrs of review/rework/testing. I think they simply don't know how/what to test...

Re: Developer Testing or Regression Testing

If the development group has access to the complete product (whatever it might be), then one could argue that NOTHING should get past their testing. We (in this SQA world) know that is not the case. If it were, we would all be out of a job!

My advice is not to get into this p...ing contest. It's easy with hindsight for you (or management, or anyone else) to say "WHY WASN'T THIS CAUGHT SOONER?" (In my former life, my test department was beaten up regularly with a phrase such as that by the director of development.)

Rejoice that the problem was found (whether or not it was ultimately fixed by development). Don't get into finger-pointing, even if (as seems to be the case) you have a developer that is lousy at testing his/her code. It's a battle you can't win. Provided you keep reporting the bugs, and enough of them fall in the area of one developer, then I would hope that his/her manager would eventually catch on to the problem and deal with it. If not --- well, you have job security!

Re: Developer Testing or Regression Testing

Hi Bill,

First let's talk about the bug. I am a bit confused because you state that on other 'screens' the textbox controls will display the 80 character string? But, if I understand you correctly this textbox dynamically resizes is the string length is greater than some value thus increasing the width of the textbox. Is that correct?

There are several different textbox properties a developer can set to handle string lengths that exceed the width of the textbox control. One option is to resize, one to stay a fixed length, and another may be to auto resize horizontally (wrap). These options depend on factors such as form size, control layout, localization, etc.

In your opinion you think it should wrap. What is the behavior of other textbox controls in your product? Do they also wrap, or are they fixed size? Consistency is important.

Now, about were to test for this. First, this is not really a functional issue per se. If the textbox takes an n to 80 char string and does what it's supposed to do with it, the functionality works. This is a behavioral or non-functional issue. Many dev's who perform unit testing do so to verify the functionality (the computational logic) of their code; not necessarily the behavior or usability of the user interface.

Personally, I would not necessarily label this as a regression test because if the underlying functionality changed then essentially you are not regression testing a known working part of the system. You are testing new functionality (which in this case exposed a behavioral issue caused by the functional implementation.

So, if you take a minute to reflect on this perspective, where do you think this type of issue would most likely be found?

Re: Developer Testing or Regression Testing

Koolforcats, As I now interpret the issue, you are a group of 1 and supposedly responsible for Regression testing only? That, in its self is a very difficult position to be in. Especially if you are the one responsible for any defects which get through to the users. I would suggest that it's time for your company to emerge from the dark ages and bring in another tester or two. Or, maybe consider UAT or Beta testing as an asset worthy of adopting in order to lower the risk of a defective delivery. As long as your developers are performing the functional testing they have less time to apply their knowledge and expertise to development and will overlook so me issues due to professional pride or ignorance of how they might effect the overall project. If I were in your position I think I might try developing a Regression Acceptance test which if failed would send the application back to the developers for retesting. It could cause an uproar, but otherwise you are going to be doing what you are doing until hell freezes over, or the application fails so badly that it will no longer have a market. Just my opinion.

Personal Comment

Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm.
~ Winston Churchill ~